Zed Update - Jumping Suspended

PaddyMonty

PaddyMonty

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Zeds now at a decent weight and seems to have shot up in height as well as getting a lot more muscle and strength in his back and topline :D
We continue to work with Gareth Hughes who says the boy has definitely improved. ie when we first took him there he "cantered like a drunk teenager and looked to have 8 legs, now he just has 6 legs" :o
He's been to 3 BS comps with varying degrees of success. My gut feeling was his canter just wasn't good enough to jump from so off to Matt Lanni we went.
After watching us warm up and pop a few fences he confirmed my suspicions. His canter is just too ground covering to jump effectively from atm. Matt set up 2 canter poles 19yrds apart which should be a comfortable 4 strides in a forward going between fences canter. Zed did it in an easy 3 :o
Once the poles were pushed out to 21yrds we could just get 4 strides in.
His canter doesn't look that long until you put him in a set distance.

So no jumping from canter until I can shorten it significantly. He can jump from trot but only a) with a placing pole 2.5yrds from fence and b) he approaches on zero contact so he makes his own mistakes. Apparently I have to make the fences challenging for him so high uprights and lower but very wide oxers.

Vids
Warm up at Matts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCa1QL2rXV4

Canter pole exercise starting at 19yrds and ending at 21 yrds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urKhN_lTqJQ
 
That is really interesting. I have exactly the same problem with my ultra leggy young TB.
What are you going to do to get his canter shorter? Just picking your brains ;) I noticed that when you rode him shorter in the vid that he broke on the corners. This is just what happens to mine, really hard to get him short but bouncy still....
Are you planning on working more on the flat to get it right? Or will the jumping out of trot work?
Mine struggles in combinations as his stride is so long it carrys him too close to the 2nd part and he has taken out the odd fence with his knees.. this can happen even if I trot in to the first part. He does learn but even when he clears the 2nd element I feel that he really has to try. I've done bounces and placing poles which he finds easy so it's strange?
I don't want to hold him back into the fence or inside a combination as think he needs to learn for himself??
What do you think you are going to do to get the canter better?
Sorry hope you don't mind all the questions. My horse was quite weak when I got him too although getting stronger all the time.
 
Interesting - he doesn't look wildly long and unbalanced, does he, just has a very long, naturally ground-covering stride. Still needs to be able to make a standard 12 foot canter step though I guess, for all sorts of reasons ;)

Kenneth has a good exercise he used for big, forward young horses, a variation of the exercise you were using. Put the poles another stride or two apart - 5-6 standard strides. Then come to the first in canter, but rather than carrying on, do a halt between the two poles. He must halt, but think dressage ie trot, walk halt, all very straight, not pulling his back teeth out :D If he finds it hard to get his head round this, having someone standing in front of the second pole can help... Then pat him, and walk away (don't walk over second pole) Do this a number of times till it starts to feel easy as he anticipates the halt - make much of him. Then just quietly keep the canter and come over the two poles - you should find that because he's anticipating the halt he shortens and the distance will come up fine. Then basically you can interchange the exercise, sometimes coming to a halt and turning away and sometimes carrying on over the second pole - that way he has to learn to wait and listen to you, and will keep shortening himself in readiness for the halt.

I've used this exercise a lot both with my own young horses and with clients, I really like it. Once they get the idea with poles, you can do it with X poles too :) :)
 
firewell said:
That is really interesting. I have exactly the same problem with my ultra leggy young TB.
What are you going to do to get his canter shorter?
Click to expand...
I have to set up two lots of poles. One set at 21mtrs down one side, the other at 19 mtrs down the other. Canter through the longer set in and easy light slightly forward seat then on turn to shorter set sit back, raise hands slightly and insist he shortens. Immediately after the short set its back to easy light forward for the long set. The idea is that he lerns to adjust his stride depending on how I'm sitting so goes on a longer canter between fences when I'm forward then instantly shortens when i sit back. Once he can do it at 21mtrs and 19 mtrs I have to shorten both sets by 1 mtr and start all over again. Keep doing this until we get it perfect at 19mtrs and 17mtrs. A few weeks work there :eek:
A side benefit of doing this is it will teach Zed to sit back to poles / fences rather than lean forwrd in to them which he does at present. We did do the full exercise during the session and Zed did start to get the idea about shortening when I sit up. Will just take time.

Keep in mind that Zed is aimed at pure SJ, not dressage or eventing

ETA, he was breaking in corners as a) I wanted to keep the canter as soft as possible so wasn't pushing him on and B) he had an intense flat work session with Gareth the day before so was feeling a little less energetic
 
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TableDancer said:
Interesting - he doesn't look wildly long and unbalanced, does he, just has a very long, naturally ground-covering stride.
Click to expand...
No he doesn't. :confused: I think its because he doesn't flatten and still has an off the floor canter that makes it look OK. Its when I put him through poles at a set distance that it really shows up. His normal canter will cover the long side of a 60mtr areana in less than 7 strides :eek:
Couple this with his huge jump and things can get a bit tricsy in combinations and related distances hence the need to sort out the canter.

I'll keep the exercise you outlined in mind if the one Matt set me to do either winds Zed up or proves ineffective. Comming back to trot/walk from canter is never a problem as he isn't strong at all despite looking like it sometimes. Matt was very insistant that he has to learn to adjust his canter purely by me just changing my upper body position.
 
I am so glad im not the only one with a horse that goes like a over grown puppy with legs to big for the rest of them.
Zed sounds identical to mine (minus the oh my gawd baby stuff, this seems to be a perminate fixture in his brain at the moment :rolleyes:) so i will be stealing all these exercises to use. :D
 
JunoXV said:
His normal canter will cover the long side of a 60mtr areana in less than 7 strides :eek:
Click to expand...

i'll raise you... my 4yro can do a long side in 4 or 5 strides.

same as your boy still uphill, balanced- just huge!!

hence like yours, he will spend lots of time learning gears in canter.

i make myself feel better by remembering Pippa Funnell saying the same about Supreme Rock when she first had him- does that help? ;)
 
Oh, I don't know where my other reply went..

Juno, he is looking very well :) I must say that my canter has completely gone after having so much time off, so it is very interesting to see videos of the exercises you are doing and will be beneficial to me too. I do love the exercise for making the horse listen through body position in canter, which I used to have and now don't, so will be stealing that one ;)
 
I knew you would say that. Still thinking about your proposition. I just have to be a little careful about it though as the owner daughter and I both now ride for covers all our expenses including training costs so obviously dont want to rock the boat :o
 
Similar problem here - my 4yo can jump, but has a massive, long stride. I can now shorten that, but she needs to build the muscles to do so for more than a few mins at a time, and then I need to convince her to jump out of that shorter stride, so we're not going out SJ for a bit, while that happens. Hope Zed learns fast :).
 
Good replys :) thanks for the exercises, I'm def going to give them a go! It seems to be quite a common theme with young horses. I suppose it takes strength behind to shorten so work in progress for mine I think! We get 7's for canter BD so it's not *that* bad.

Zed is a beautiful horse, he looks so light on his feet :)
 
Lovely horse :)

Food for thought - rather than set distance canter poles, why not use the stride by stride version? Teaches him what you are looking for, in essence? Passing thought, but something we're using a fair amount lately to some use.
 
I thought at first he must have been injured or something :eek:
His canter looks very balanced, just big! He's looking miles better than he did when he arrived too, far shinier and happier looking.

I'll try and bear in mind TDs and yours canter exercises for the Daft One - having issues with canter speeds, lengths and direction at the minute, hopefully they'll help!
 
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